New Status Recognizes Pressures On The Fox

Growth Could Halt Waterway's Upswing

August 29, 1999|By Anika M. Scott, Tribune Staff Writer.

Conservationists concerned about the Fox River's future see a sinister side to booming communities along the watershed, towns that in 20 years will attract more people, more housing, and inevitably, more toilets.

Every flush in new homes from McHenry to Geneva will leave bacteria in the river. And with thousands of families expected to flock there in coming years, the strides made by environmentalists in cleaning up the river could--so to speak--go down the tubes.

"The Fox is cleaner than it was 20 or 30 years ago, but new pollution is coming down the pike," said Jack Darin, state field representative at the Sierra Club's Illinois chapter.

Last week, the Fox River became the latest waterway to be added to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency's pollution-prevention plan.

"It's about time," said Nancy Williamson, a board member for Friends of the Fox River, which had pressured state and federal agencies to include the river.

Williamson said that, if the state holds off on conservation efforts until the watershed's population booms, it will be too late.

"We need to start working on it now, or we could see a reverse in the progress we have made," she said.

The river had been excluded from the plan because, as state environmental officials said, it had seen such improvement.

But in April, American Rivers, a national conservation group, listed the Fox River as the seventh-most-endangered river in America because of the threat of suburban sprawl. Local and state environmental groups hailed the list as proof that now is not the time to forget about the Fox.

With pressure from conservationists, the federal EPA, and a new state government, state environmental officials finally placed the Fox River on a list of more than 100 at-risk waterways that will be tested for pollutants and monitored for long-term health.

"We wanted to show that the Fox was a clear priority for the administration, and important to northern Illinois," said state EPA Director Thomas V. Skinner.

The Fox River is a major artery that winds from Wisconsin to Aurora and beyond. The Chain o' Lakes, formed by a dam in the Fox, and the portion of the river that runs through Lake and McHenry Counties make up the most popular recreational waterway in the state. Its main branch and tributaries penetrate Lake, McHenry, Kane, DuPage and Kendall Counties.

Decades ago, carp were the best catch in the river, and even they were reputed to have cancerous lesions. In many places the pea-green or brown waters gave off an unpleasant smell.

But with the help of the federal Clean Water Act, the river reawakened. Municipal sewage treatment improved, industries were prevented from dumping contaminated water, and the catfish, bass and walleye returned.

The river's recovery has been good news for communities along the watershed, where sports fishing and riverwalks have returned. But ironically, the river's improvement could be its undoing.

By 2010, people attracted to homes in the Fox watershed are expected to increase the population in the region by 600,000 over 1990 census figures.

The state Department of Natural Resources projected that the accompanying sewage discharge into the river will rise by 57 percent over 1990 levels.

The Sierra Club's Darin said that, as the population of the watershed doubles, the low oxygen levels and fecal coliform bacteria that still plague the river will get worse if preventive measures aren't taken.

"As the population increases, on a basic level, that means more toilets and more waste water," he said. "That has to go somewhere."

But now that the state EPA has added the Fox to its 15-year Total Maximum Daily Load study, state environmentalists have pledged to scrutinize the river and tightly control waste-water dumping.

After assessing the river's water quality, environmentalists will use the data to set the maximum amount of a pollutant, such as phosphorus, that it can handle. These amounts differ from waterway to waterway.

Robert Moore, executive director of the Prairie Rivers Network in Champaign, said the may need more help than that.

"We recognize the problem at the state level; now it's time to address it at the local level too," he said.